Kenanga Investors wins overall Islamic Group Award for fourth year
KUALA LUMPUR: Kenanga Investors Bhd (Kenanga Investors) has won the overall best Malaysia Islamic Funds Group Awards (Equity) and Malaysia Provident Funds Group Awards (Mixed Assets) categories at the Refinitiv Lipper Fund Awards Malaysia 2021.
This year remains the fourth occasion the firm has won under the Malaysia Islamic Fund (Equity) Group category.
To note, Kenanga Investors received a total of seven awards at the Refinitiv Lipper Fund Awards Malaysia 2021.
Aside from the overall awards, other individual fund wins include, Kenanga SyariahEXTRA Fund (KSEF) which swept a total of four awards in two categories; Malaysia Islamic Funds under Mixed Asset MYR Balanced for 3 Years and 5 Years and Malaysia Provident Funds under Mixed Asset MYR Balanced for 3 Years and 5 Years.
Similarly, the Kenanga Growth Opportunities Fund (KGOF) won Malaysia Provident Funds under Equity Malaysia Small and MidCaps for 3 Years.
“Our success can be contributed to our commitment to sustainable performance,” executive director and chief executive officer Ismitz Matthew De Alwis said.
“In 2020, we experienced one of the most volatile market conditions ever; it is a testament to our capabilities as an asset and wealth manager to be able to achieve the outperformance we experienced last year.
“Without a doubt, our investment team lead by Lee Sook Yee, the 2020 Malaysia CIO of the Year winner by the recent Asia Asset Management’s Best of the Best Awards, have worked tirelessly and are constantly on the lookout for innovative ideas and products.
“Our long-standing philosophy of bottom-up stock picking combined with a stringent risk management framework guided us as we navigated the intricate investment landscape.
“This enabled us to produce superior returns, often illustrated by our history of strong three, five and 10-year consistent top performances.
“Last year, our decision to overweight the tech and healthcare sectors proved crucial as demand in these sectors was accelerated due to the pandemic.
“Overall, we chose to stick to our convictions with a longerterm view. This contributed to the subsequent rebound and outperformance. We believe that in 2021, the vaccination efforts should underpin economic recovery despite growth expectations and inflationary concerns.
“We will continue to adopt a barbell strategy in our sector positioning and maintain an overweight in tech to ride on secular growth trends while also favouring more cyclical sectors such as consumer discretionary, financials, energy, and commodities to take advantage of the recovery. As of December 31, 2020, KSEF delivered returns of 40.29 per cent (three-years), 62.78 per cent (five-years), 119.79 per cent (10-years).
“For the same period, KGOF’s returns stood at 50.81 per cent (three-years), 63.62 per cent (fiveyears), 156.80 per cent (10-years).”
Going forward, the asset and wealth management firm plans to extend its growing reach in sustainable investing.
“We have been actively supporting the increasing interest in socially responsible investing and Islamic investments which has experienced a sharp peak in demand during these postpandemic times.
“The universe of sustainable investments will be an integral component towards providing long-term value to both our internal and external stakeholders as its indicators offer additional insight in evaluating a company’s longevity beyond traditional financial performance.”
As a signatory to the Malaysian Code for Institutional Investors and a member of the
Institutional Investors Council, Kenanga Investors has recently launched the Kenanga Waqf Al-Ihsan Fund, in line with the recent announcement of a new framework by regulators to facilitate the offering of Islamic funds with Waqf features to grow the Islamic social finance segment.
This, after its recent acquisition of a local Islamic exchangetraded funds provider which has added depth to its existing ETF suite.
In early 2021, the Malaysian Rating Corporation Bhd (MARC) reaffirmed its investment manager rating (IMR) of IMR2 on Kenanga Investors and its wholly-owned subsidiary Kenanga Islamic Investors Bhd (KIIB) for the fourth consecutive year since the first rating in 217.
The IMR rating reflects the firm’s sustainable investment strategies and well-grounded risk management practices.